


Totally Rad

by Shiggityshwa



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 1988, AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, But like pre-continuum because it's set in the 80s, Dark, F/M, Post-Continuum, The Eighties, Time Travel, Word prompt, back in time, stargateddrabbles, stuck out of time, the 80s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 19,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiggityshwa/pseuds/Shiggityshwa
Summary: After a routine mission goes awry, the members of SG-1 are separated, with Cameron being sent back to 1988.





	1. Centerfold

**Author's Note:**

> So I got real sick, and during one of my fever dreams I just heard "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar over and over again and when I woke up I started listening to 80s music and haven't really stopped. I had the thought of writing a 'back in time' fic but really didn't get it off the ground until Stargateddrabbles prompts got me motivated. 
> 
> This fic is more focused on the day-to-day living, the media, and relationship building that occurs, and not so much the technical babble of don't-step-on-a-butterfly-or-you'll-reset-evolution type thing that A Sound of Thunder focuses on. The 80s is this really weird mash-up of pop princess pink and dark grittiness surfacing (both in music and on a socio-political level) and I wanted capture that. 
> 
> Lastly, each chapter will have a thematically relevant song in the title, which I will add to the footnotes.

He thought he was alone.

For an entire fucking month, he thought he was alone.

Spent it flying under the radar, living in a hotel room with a hot plate and a bathroom door that didn’t close. His neighbors were all illegal immigrants—some of the nicest people he’s ever met—who hooked him up with a factory job that paid off the books.

In his downtime, he tried to figure out how to let someone know what happened, when he didn’t even know.

He, Jackson, Vala, and Teal’c walked through the gate like normal, like always, seven chevrons hot and ready to go. Only as soon as they did, they all got the same startled expression and were torn away down different wormholes.

He awoke face down in an alley behind the hotel where he lives now.

Had to pass off his SGC uniform as a costume for a party and store his P90 behind the rickety closet door before eventually stealing a pair of the tightest jeans he’s ever worn.

He didn’t fit in, that’s for damn sure, he still doesn’t. His hair hasn’t grown out enough, and he still doesn’t like squeezing into those jeans whenever he goes to work.

When he found out it was 1988 he almost passed out.

When someone said it again, he almost threw up.

Whenever anyone talks about how the 90s are just around the corner, he almost cries.

He’s already done the 80s and the 90s—he’s already lived through that punishment of boybands and the Gulf War and just everything counterculture he can think of. The only saving grace is the Saturday morning cartoons that come in fuzzy over the hotel TV. He eats Nintendo cereal and watches Transformers and pretends that his momma is gonna shout at him from the other room to share the remote with his brother.

Except that right now another him is out there, nineteen, a year into an air force contract that’s going to change his life and let him meet some of his favorite people.

Tries to imagine what Teal’c would be like in the Victorian period with his one-word answers finally acceptable, or Jackson in Ancient Greece desperate to bum a ride to Egypt, or Vala in the roaring twenties making her own brand of moonshine and sticking dirty bills under lacy garters.

One day after work, Luis, his neighbor who got him his job, invites him over for a beer. Doesn’t know why, maybe he’s just so grumbly and depressed all the time the guy took pity on him. Luis’s place is a little nicer but has way more family with a pregnant wife and a toddling daughter, but he has two bedrooms and a CRT TV with cable. 1980s cable, consisting of about 20 channels that are mostly just radio on TV.

“If you pay the manager fifty extra bucks, he’ll hook you up.” Luis twists the cap of his Budweiser off and swigs it back while bouncing his baby daughter on his knee.

“I’ll save my money, thanks,” groans it into the neck of his own beer, remembering the last time they went out as a team. It’s hard to keep his head clear lately, and it’s only been one month—well thirty-five days.

What he does remember is how she was dressed and that she had way too much to drink and he’s never been that conflicted in his life. Thinks about her the most because if he closes his eyes in the shower, he can still remember how she smelled that night, still see the blue play over her skin.

Luis’s wife calls him from the bedroom, and he stands quickly, setting the beer down on a glass table between them. “Here, find something good.”

He hands him the remote before retreating to help his wife with something, and he doesn’t know what makes him actually channel surf, but he does because maybe there’s a way he can place bets on the Superbowl or something, at least live in ’88 in luxury which is probably a boxy car and a mansion decked out in pinks, blues, and black.

Flips by NBC, by CNN, by MTV—and then immediately back to MTV.

Because.

Because.

Because.

Holy fuck.

“—and that was The Pixies with _Gigantic_ , and I have no idea how you people don’t realize what that song is implying—”

She’s right there.

She’s right fucking there in front of him in the popped stomach of the television. Black hair all teased and sitting in a high pony on the side of her head. She’s decked out in bright pink lips and purple eye shadow. She’s got on two or three tops with a large belt around her waist and a zebra striped skirt. She’s never looked more Vala and he was wrong about the 1920s because she’s never been more in the zone.

“—The four o’clock music block will start off with _Stroke Me_ —do you people really not see the innuendos in your own—” but she cuts herself off with a forced giggle and shrugs her shoulders innocently, before reclining back onto a square couch. Her hair doesn’t even move. It still has the diamond clip in it from when he last saw her.

 “—of course, first comes my daily music dedication to Cameron, Daniel, and Teal’c. Once again here’s _Somebody Save Me_ by Cinderella.”

He chuckles, and then covers his mouth, a little lost for the second time since he woke up in the eighties.

“Hey?” Luis drops a hand to his shoulder, his daughter hanging off his hip. “You okay, man?”

Realizes he’s crying, and she skips over to the brick backdrop, her zebra skirt is almost a tutu and her legs, God her legs. She laughs until the cut fades away to the song she announced, but just before the transition her face falls, tired and lost.

He can find her.

“I gotta go to New York City.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band


	2. Hey

“I need to see her.”

Spent a little over seventy bucks—two days wages—to book a bus ticket from Colorado Springs to New York City. He can drive, going back in time didn’t change that—except make his license issued in 2010 moot. During the whole trip, a guy a few rows ahead of him is listening to rap on a Ghetto Blaster. He’s fine with it—until the guy resets the tape and plays it four more times.

He’s talking to her assistant or something. Some guy with hair that looks like he might be in A Flock of Seagulls, his face hidden underneath the dip of bangs. That doesn’t stop him from being sassy as all fuck. “Then turn on to MTV tomorrow from noon to five.”

Grunts because these goddamn pants are so tight and he could wear them before because he was a teenager, and more flexible, and hadn’t drilled a fighter jet into a solid sheet of ice yet—can’t feel his feet. “Look, I’m one of the guys she dedicates that song to everyday.”

“Really?” The guy shoves a pen behind his ear, and it’s gobbled up by hair.

Behind him on a small—but considered big—CRT TV mounted from the ceiling, they flash a promo of her doing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun shit, and he grins because she’s there.

She’s really there.

Asked himself on the bus who he would prefer to be stuck with and he never answered himself even though he knows it’s her. Sure, he’s going to have to walk her through the culture and remind her not to spoil the future, but for some odd reason, he thinks she’s the best way to get home, even if it’s not physically.

Even if it is physical.

He took her home once.

A week ago—a week before the month spent here—thirty-seven days—didn’t really take her home, more like got in a taxi with her. She sidled up next to him in the backseat, she was wearing a skirt—he remembers so clearly because she never wears skirts and her legs had on these sheer leaf-patterned tights that were so smooth—

“Excuse me?” He glances back down at the guy, who really is a kid, probably just over twenty, but is glaring at him.

“Sorry, what’d you say?”

The kid huffs and maybe rolls his eyes, he can only guess what’s happening underneath the hair. “I said, ‘you and every other guy.’”

“Look—” he pushes aside all the rage welling up in him from getting no respect, from the pants cutting off the circulation in his legs, from just being in this shitty year. Again. “There has to be some way I can prove it.”

“Ms. Mala used to come out and verify for herself, but after being disappointed by so many _poseurs_ —” with the word the kid cocks an eyebrow and looks him over once with disgust—probably “—she became physically distraught and could no longer bring herself to do so.”

“So?”

“So?”

“So—” Claws his fingers into the garish marble finish of the counter jutting out from the desk. Keeps telling himself not to just lean over and whack the kids head off the stone. “I know Vala, she left some way for me to prove it.”  

The kid sighs and pulls at one of his necklaces which holds a key, maneuvering it carefully over his hair, he shoves it into a locked drawer and comes back with an envelope. He shoves his pinkie nail—a long, shovel-like—into the edge of the envelope tearing it open, removing three cue cards. “Which one did you say you were again?”

“Cameron,” he snarls out through gritting teeth.

With a lick of his finger, the kid retrieves one of the cards. “Where were you shot?”

“What?”

“Where were you shot?”

“What do you mean.”

“Dunno, that’s all it says here.”

Shit.

Shit.

Okay.

Did he ever get shot when he was with her? She took one to the gut after Adria was born. But he never— “the highway, I got shot on that highway.” The kid says nothing, not really believing and he elaborates. “In the arm.”

“Show me.”

Would protest but what the hell. He rolls up the sleeve of his plaid pullover and sets the scar of the bullet grazing his skin on display.

The kid still doesn’t react but this time the stoic nature is more of disbelief. He picks up the phone to his right and presses a button on the number pad. “Ms. Mala. Yes. Yes. Yes, I—Well, I think I have your Cameron here.” Then he hangs up, his face looking paler than before. He swallows harshly and juts a thumb to the smooth mahogany doors behind him. “She’ll see you.”

Tries not to just barrel through the doors. Doesn’t know if he should knock or just open them. He raps softly against the wood finding it thicker than he thought.

“Just go in.” The kid scoffs, and then turns up the radio at his desk.

He grabs the metal handle and turns not knowing what he expects to find. Just praying that she hasn’t fallen victim to the bad side of the decade. Sure, the music is pop princess and synthed to all hell, but she’s famous, there’s things they didn’t have a chance to warn her about—

The room is pretty big for a dressing room—must double as her office or something. One of the walls is bright purple, the others are gray subway tiles. Garish pieces of brightly colored and oddly cut artwork punch out, and there’s a bright pink sofa against the windows overlooking downtown New York. She’s sitting at her vanity, a shiny white desk with several rows of bare, bright light bulbs, smoothing on lip gloss.

She hasn’t even bothered to look up at him yet.

“Really?” The gloss drops out of her hand, her eyes as wide as he’s ever seen them. “I have to answer your bridge troll’s questions and you just—”

The air gets knocked out of him as she launches herself across the room, linking her knees behind his and pressing her cheek into his neck, hugging herself tightly to him. He grunts and straightens balancing her added weight—and the rush of blood that definitely does not go to his head.

“Vala—” His hands are in the air because he doesn’t know what to do with them. Knows what he wants to do with them. Knows what he has done with them. Every night after work, one hand pressed into the dingy shower tile and the other—she shifts against him, her thigh sliding over the crotch of his increasingly tight jeans. “Vala!”

But when she pulls back from nuzzling his neck, she’s not grinning or laughing, but crying, eyes red and her mascara running down her face. “Hey.” He nudges her with his cheek and she stops sobbing long enough to look at him with innocence he’s never seen from her. “It’s not that bad, Princess.”

Her eyes well up again and she nods at him, her lips pressed tightly together, turning white. She hugs him again, her face rubbing back against his neck, and he struts his legs wide to carry her—and also because of the pants issue—to the plush couch, falling back and flopping down with a grunt.

Thankfully, she scrambles off him, her bare knees digging into his thigh—his bad thigh, but that like fucking matters right now—and she places a hand on the side of his face, before leaning up and kissing his cheek. She’s so soft and she smells like Hubba Bubba and hairspray.

“I was so close to giving up.” She curls against him, rubbing her shoulder, the side of her torso, against his chest and sighs, leaning her head into his collarbone. When he shifts, trying to adjust himself, lifting his hand from the arm of the couch she grabs it, holding it in both of hers.

And he can only see her in cool tones, her body bare and light blue in the shut blinds of his bedroom, her fingers tickling behind his ears as encouragement, the scent of vodka and cranberry juice on her lips, dry and sticking together as she pursed them in a moan, the feel of her ribs under his fingers, her hips in his palm, the taste of her rocking under him.

“I was so close.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song title taken from "Hey" by the Pixies. 1989 so I'm jumping the gun, but nothing fit quite as appropriately.


	3. Pretty in Pink

They leave together, not exactly hand in hand, but she’s walking really close to him, wearing this purple satin dress that’s all bows. Her hair is all frizzed up and piled on the top of her head. He thinks that the kid at the desk sneers while they prance by, and if he could see himself right now, he’d probably want to kick his own ass, but he’s just so happy that he’s not alone.

So happy they can work together to get back.

She takes him to her apartment. A modest one bedroom that overlooks Central Park. There’s a small kitchen, a raised living room. The walls are a crazy black-patterned wallpaper, and her furniture is either mirror, glass or teal. It’s awful but it’s high-end and much better than a single hotel room.

Before he can ask what the hell happened, she drops her keys into a thick crystal bowl on a side table and glances to him over her shoulders—her jacket only slightly padded—and explains, “I came to in the middle of that intersection with all the advertisements.” She points vaguely in the direction of Times Square. “They were doing some audition for the next on-air personality of that music channel.” Raises a pump behind her, her pink nails flicking at the strap and letting the first shoe topple to the ground before moving to the second. She sets her foot back down and is about two or three inches shorter. Her feet must be killing her. “They saw me in my SGC gear and thought I was a gimmick act.”

“You won?”

“I have a winning personality, Cameron.” She stretches up on her tiptoes, her pale skin visible through the sheer stockings, then wiggles her toes as she takes a few steps before starting to pull random clips from her hair.

“Never said you didn’t, Princess.” All the photos on her wall are generic, all the art is gaudy and angled. The apartment looks like a show room, nothing out of place, nothing holding her flair except for the pile of pins she sets down on the coffee table beside an equal sized pile of pins probably leftover from yesterday. “They pick this place for you?”

“It was part of the prize package.” Pulls another handful out and the left side of her hair deflates into messy, but more normal waves. “You can come in Cameron, if you’re afraid of wrecking something, I promise you that I care for nothing in this apartment.”

“Aside present company, of course.” He toes off his dusty second-hand store sneakers and walks onto the carpet in his stained socks.

“Of course.” She grins, but her eyes flit away, the second half of her hair successfully unpinned, and tries to comb her fingers through the hairsprayed solid mess.

As he climbs the steps to the raise where there’s a simple sitting area and a tv, she shrugs out of her jacket and suddenly there’s a lot of her skin. Bare shoulders as the angled, silk coat falls into the chair behind her. The dress she’s wearing seems smaller now, tighter fitting, but gulping a bit by her breasts, chunky necklaces falling into her cleavage and when she heaves a breath in, clearing her throat and standing, he can tell that she’s not wearing a bra.

“I’m going to go shower. I’d be a courteous host and offer its use to you first, but if I don’t wash this product out it becomes near impossible—”

Flashes his hands to tell her not to apologize—and since when does Vala apologize—he tries not to scrutinize her as he sits in the vacated chair. It’s round, teal, with a black circular pillow that digs into his back until he tosses it to the couch.  “Don’t let me screw up your routine.”

She nods but doesn’t seem as confident—since when is Vala not confident—and he allows himself to relax in the chair, trying to scroll through possible means of time travel. They would definitely need a gate but getting access isn’t going to be easy. Maybe they could play it straight, just go to the SGC and explain what happened, show their credentials, try to play to the open minds present. If Hammond, Landry, or O’Neill is there, it might work—

Stops thinking of escape plans because he can hear her in the shower. She’s singing _Jessie’s Girl_ and getting all the lyrics wrong, and he breaks out into laughter, burying his face in his hands because she works for MTV and doesn’t know the words.

*

While he showers, she orders a pizza, and switches from the robe she guided him into the bathroom with, to an oversized shirt. There might be hidden shorts under there, he doesn’t know and when catches himself trying to figure out if there is, he feels like a creep. She’s sitting on the ground, her long legs stretched out beneath the glass table, toes still flexing. He sits on the couch, also round and teal and there’s no give because the furniture is too new, too unused. They watch tv while eating, CNN talks about the Gulf War, MTV screams screechy guitar cords with flickering icons and she rolls her eyes, telling him to switch it.

They end up on Night Court and she slaps his thigh because once Teal’c went through a sitcom phase that she got swirled up with. “It’s that show.”

“I know.”

“The afterhours judgement show.”

“Night Court, Vala.” Would groan into his hand, but the flicker of the television off her skin is the same blue from his bedroom and it feels ethereal, that he held her in the way he did, in her heavy-lidded afterglow, her hair pasting to his skin as he inhaled against hers. Her kisses relaxed, holding less passion, but existing as gentle, plush pecks that tickled his skin and were somehow more genuine. How despite coming inside her, despite still being inside her, it was more intimate.

But when he focuses on her again, her eyes are glassy with tears she’s fighting, when he leans forward, she blinks away from the screen, her eyes landing on the pizza stain she left on the white carpet beside an older stain. “Vala?”

Doesn’t acknowledge him, except for a hand she slaps to his thigh covered in a pair of sweats—one of the only changes of clothes he brought because he was thinking—he wasn’t thinking—he holds her cold hand, the ones with the press on nails, and cups his hands around it like he’s trying to protect a candle flame. “We’ll get back.”

She only nods.

They fall asleep like that; him on the couch, her on the floor and when he wakes up, her cheek is cushioned against his thigh and through the weak cotton of his cheap sweats he feels the warmth of her breath dance across his skin, feels the limpness of her arms wrapped around him. Like he might do the unbelievable and get up and leave her.

Like he might abandon her.

He woke up next to her hogging his thick wool blanket and pockets of her bare skin popping out in the dim glow of sunrise. Woke up and freaked out. Acted like he didn’t remember, when he did, every second of it because it’s been so long since he’s been with someone where it was just—just—damn near euphoric. Her mouth around him leaving lip gloss smudges and his mouth stamping bruises onto her skin as she arched into him for more.

But he freaked out because it was a cardinal rule broken. Teammate. Team leader. It was the alcohol that did him in. Too many drinks and her hips gyrated to the beat, right with the beat like it was nothing, like the music was inside of her and he just wanted to share it. He just needed a taste of it because the buzzed flush on his face covered how he watched, how he licked his lips tasting bourbon but wanting to know how lap up a riff, a beat, the wrong lyrics to Jessie’s Girl.

And he did and it was so easy because she was so complacent. That’s what he told himself, that she wanted it, that she was an easy conquest because she was Vala and before that she was Qetesh for as long as he’s been in the air force—which was only a year in 1988—and that’s how it happened.

It had been his awful idea, but she—she agreed.

Her hair dries soft and when he chances running his fingers through, there’s no knots. She sighs, her lips pouting before opening her eyes. Without all the makeup, the heavy shadow, the false lashes, the drawn on brows, the thick black liner, and painted up lips—the same bubble gum gloss—she looks sick, eye bags and red rims from tears, cracked lips from applying and reapplying and mouth breathing from nostrils plugged with emotions she no longer declares, because the last time she did he exploded.

Dark eyes cycle to meet his and in her half wakefulness she offers him a half grin, like she’s got a secret. Would bet she has several.

“You should head to bed,” tells her and realizes his hand is still caressing through her hair, silky and cold from air drying.

She nods, her chin rolling against his thigh and it rested there once when she stopped, still holding him but giving him a wicked grin and a flick of her tongue.

Doesn’t say a word.

But returns briefly with a pillow and some blankets for him to lay on the fat couch and stare out at New York City. He doesn’t try to follow her to bed. She doesn’t invite him or beckon him. They’ve been there and done that—much like him with this year already—and it didn’t end well.

Ended too well.

Didn’t end well because of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from "Pretty in Pink" by The Psychedelic Furs


	4. This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Another month passes.

It’s almost in slow motion.

Waited at home for her during the first few days, but before the week was out, he accompanied her to work. They would catch a cab—paid for by MTV—and in the backseat he would let his jean vacuumed knees brush against hers. Would watch while they manicured her into something they wanted, hiding everything she is underneath. He was never allowed on set though, just had to watch her smile fade over the course of five hours before she returned to the room tired and quiet and shuffling her feet.

Her shift at MTV runs from noon to five where she’s known as Vala Mala. Didn’t tell him how she came up with the pseudonym, or how it stuck—did tell him she’s supposed to cultivate this on-air persona that’s bubbly and giggly and vapid. That she’s not supposed to be aware of the war or the wage gap or the trickle down effect of Reganomics. That she’s just supposed to introduce songs with vague innuendos and above all be sexually appealing.

“I’m just eye candy.” Declared in disappointment one day while two women flitted around her, one teasing up her hair, the other slathering on layers of makeup.

He reached for her hand and one of the women smacked it away. “Don’t scuff her nails.”

So he yanked a stool forward, slapped his ass down on it and watched her try not to focus on him—tried to keep her masquerade together. “You’re more than that.”

“Perhaps. Eventually. But in this decade, I’m not.”

Finally, one day she sat in the chair, the stench of aerosol hairspray gagging the entire room and a bright fuchsia painted on her lips. They didn’t speak much because of a fight earlier because they were making no progress on how to get out of this year and back to their own. She was overworked, he was depressed, and they couldn’t find the motivation when it was boiled into their every action.

But he saw the expression, the same one she gets whenever they watch Night Court and he has to hold her hand through the whole episode as she reminisces in half mumbles about Teal’c, about Daniel, about Dancing with the Stars. That far away sadness contaminating her entire face, every blink, every muscle twitch, every barely there sigh.

When he reached for her hand, the same woman smacked it away and didn’t even give him a reason why this time. Like it should be ingrained at this point not to touch her because every time it did, things soured. That he should gauge how it felt to drag his nose across the dip of her hip, his tongue across her collarbone, and compare it to the week where they barely talked, the one where he thinks she got sick with that space virus or whatever it was, and he had to pretend it was fine and the idea of not holding her again would have to be normal. That the virus raging through her was because she used to be a Goa’uld, but also because she got so upset when he refused to acknowledge her, that she got distracted and injected.

He was distracted or maybe he could have stopped it.

When she stood from the chair, a terrycloth black robe with ‘MTV’ embroidered across the back in hot pink stitching wrapped around her body, he stood too, as was usual. But this time he grabbed her, his hands on hers, then her biceps, then dragging his greasy fingers over her cheeks and through her hair before plunging his tongue into her mouth.

Barely heard her surprised little gasp over the screeching of the two women who now had to restart.

Hears the familiar shuffle of her heels across the floor before the huge doors to her office open and she tumbles in. Tired from working, from putting on a persona she’s so good at. He’s sitting on the couch, doing what research he can with encyclopedias and radio shack flyers trying to figure out if he could forge their documents somehow.

She flops onto the opposite end of the couch, the large bow in her hair more than lopsided, and crawls until she rests her head in his lap, her fingers beckoning for one of the flyers which he hands to her, before unclipping the bow and chucking it across the room.

“Any luck?” Wide dark eyes stare up at him.

Caresses a few strands away from her face, tickling down her neck, rooting into her hair, massaging the best he can because he knows she has a headache. The sensory overload from smells, and bright lights, and tight hair and clothes and shoes. “Not really.”

“What about getting a computer?” She points to a calculator in the flyer and he holds the paper and directs her hand to where the computer is. “I should be able to hack into your Pentagog.”

“Pentagon, and you can’t hack into it if there is no internet yet.”

She bursts up, her ass sliding backwards to his lap, warm under the ruffle of a skirt, and he cups her bare thigh to keep her from sliding off the side of the couch. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really exist yet.”

Shakes her head, her teeth sinking into her lips, pulling tightly on the pale purple tint. “No. No—”

His hand drops to her back. “Vala—”

But she shakes it off, tears wetting the makeup in the corner of her eye as she pushes up from the couch, her legs shaking with every step, her oversized jean jacket swallowing her. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“I know this is shitty.” Stands his hands wanting to gesture for her to settle, but knows she deserves the freak out. Knows that she has so little say in her life that there might as well be a parasite inside her. “But you just have to put up with it for a little longer.”

“This is exactly like—”

“I know what it’s like, Vala.”  He silences her, only because when she tells him the stories—it takes a few drinks to get her looser lipped—he always stays with her until she cries herself to sleep, and then leaves to sit in the bathroom until the feeling of nausea passes through him.

The stuff she’s done, had to do, been made to do.

Her eyes instantly fall half-lidded with irritation, and she smacks her lips in offense, because he really has no fucking clue what it’s like—he just—he really can’t hear about it anymore.

“This job gives us shelter, we can eat, and be safe, and be warm.” He takes cautious steps towards her, his hands flat by his hips and his voice a tired drawl, because he is tired. The couch is like sleeping on a potato. “You doing this means I can focus on getting us out of here.” Plucks her hand, still cold and a little gritty, and she lets him, but she’s stiff and won’t look him in the eye. “I’m focusing on getting us out of here, Princess, I really am.”

“I know, I just—” she drifts back towards the couch, plopping back down, her head in her hands. “Really hate this.”  

“I know.” Crouches before her, his knee cracking, his pants not offering any give, and shifts between her knees to cup her face, and rest it against his. Knows that she’s thinking of laying next to him in his bed twenty-two years in the future, when they did the same thing, when they shared their breathes and complimented each other, and laughed still buzzed, but bodies flushed for another reason, still shaking, growing tired

Knows because he’s thinking of it too.

He also knows that they can only refuse each other for so long. He can only her turn her down so many times until she stops asking. She can only ask so many times until he takes her up on the offer, because being inside her was the last time he didn’t feel lost.

 “I know.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title borrowed from 'This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)' by Talking Heads


	5. Tame

“No. No. Not at all—it’s just—”

A month later and she’s walking around the apartment in another oversized shirt—her pajamas of choice—while her pizza sits sweating grease onto the table through a paper plate. It’s been a tense week for both of them, he’s been leaving her side when she works, in order to research at the library where he can use one of the two computers if it’s not that busy. He’s working the angle of her hacking idea, because although in 2010 she’s no computer expert, she’s logged into everyone’s private files more than a dozen times without a single digit of a password being uttered.

There’s some awards show this weekend and she’s spent the week chatting to nominated musicians and celebrities excited to attend.

She didn’t think she had to attend.

Watches her long legs move before the illuminated television while a coke commercial plays, her finger playing with the hem of the shirt—a nervous tell—as her attitude and expression deflate into surrender.

“Fine. Yes. I understand.” Before she finished speaking, she slams the handle of her Garfield phone into the cradle and then promptly whips it across the room with a shout.

He glances up from his encyclopedia and his wet pizza. “You okay?”

She flops into the one of the round chairs, her shirt creeping dangerously high and there are no shorts beneath. Expects her to grab a pillow and snuggle up to it and pout, but instead she cradles her head in her hand and softly mumbles, “I have to go.”

Closing the encyclopedia, he stands, stepping over the newest pizza stain on the once white carpet, and drops a comforting hand to her back, mainly because this way he doesn’t have to try to guess what style of panties she’s wearing. “I know.”

Her skin is hot from her outburst, from undirected emotion, as he rubs his hand over the divots in her spine. She was so small against him, so frail, but she moved with his energy, this rhythm he couldn’t describe, her ribs depressing as she curled around him, him just everywhere on her.

Should remove his hand, but he doesn’t.

Should excuse himself to go jack off in the shower like he usually does, but he doesn’t.

“They said I could have a plus one though—” her face brightens, and stars dances in her eyes as she holds his, sinking in, clutching and not letting go. When he slides his hand off her shoulders, she grabs it, shaking it playfully. “You can come too.”

“Vala, you know I have to—”

Drops his hand like it’s on fire. The sweetness melting off her face as she stands, ignoring the cold pizza and carpet stains, ignoring a McDonald’s commercial.  “Never mind.”

Trails her erratic dance over the carpet, trying not to get in her way, trying to defuse her. “Vala, you act like I have a choice.”

“You act like I do,” she barks back. “I would much prefer being a host—”

“It’s not—”

“No Cameron, as the sole contributor to our monetary funds I demand a modicum of respect, so you will be silent, and you will listen to me.” She pauses, waits for him to say a word. He feels temperature rise, feel heat between his toes and fingers and across the back of his neck, but keeps his mouth stitched his eyebrows tightly knit, only answering with a glare. “As a host, at least the idea of a choice was taken away from me. I was a partial bystander in my own life, unable to act on any whims, or fight any urges. Now I’m a puppet. I do what middle-aged men tell me to do, look how they want me to look, and I’m nothing but a play thing put on display for your country—this moronic country obsessed with advertisements and video games with poor graphics while wars are happening, people are dying of disease, and I’m just flouncing about, being touched, being groomed and—”

Suddenly her promo for MTV flashes across the screen, the persona, oozing from her, forced and false. Glances back just as she’s grabbing a decorative sculpture from the side table, and as she winds up to pitch it at the television, he manages to grab her, wrestling his arm against hers until the abstract piece of shit knickknack tumbles to the ground and she starts sobbing.

There’s violence in her tears, her face pained and her body tight as she tries again to wrest away from him, but he guides her to him, his hands loosening, sliding around the small of her back where she radiates heat.

“I just want to go back.” It’s voiceless as she’s smothered against his chest, her arms solid at her side.

“I know, Princess, I know.” Coils around her tighter and at his comprehension, she clings to him, looping her arms and sobbing.

Just sobbing.

They stay like that until her breaths hiccup to a calmness where she’s able to breathe clear, and he rubs a thumb harshly over her wet, puffy face, before dipping his lips to her forehead. “I’ll go.”

She shakes her head, her skin rocking against his lips, and there’s just a hint of salt against his tongue. “No, Cameron, you’re absolutely right—”

Pulls back, holding her still by the shoulders. “I’m coming.” Speaks it and doesn’t blink, needs her to know that he’s serious. “We can do this together—we’ve got to start doing this together.”

He nods and she nods, and only heavy exhales and sniffles are shared between them.

When she falls asleep, with her head resting against his knee. He sneaks his hands under her, scooping her into his arms and carrying her back to her bed. The comforter is heavy, and the sheets are silk—so different from the department store brand sheets he had, or the knitted blanket from his mom. The room is still light, neon strips of lights illuminating around the floorboards.

She turns away from him in sleep, her curled fingers coming to rest against the pillow by her face, and she mewls softly in protest, in dream, in exhaustion. He’s heard her cries of ecstasy, and it still makes him feel proud. Felt her release against him in a shudder, her fingertips fanning, tapping in pleasure against his shoulders, and her head thrown back.

Had it wrong before.

She seems so small now in the never darkness of the eighties. So helpless, curled on her side and panting her way through a dream.

He doesn’t sleep on the couch after that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from "Tame" by The Pixies


	6. Blue Monday

He’s holding her, dragging her into his lap, his hand over the shallow reps of her stomach as her blood seeps out between his fingers and he screams until he’s red faced. Siting in some alley, in some field, on some random planet, in the concrete halls of the mountain, on the side of the road of the highway he got shot on—his heart didn’t beat until he saw her scamper out of that wreckage—his hand on her forehead when she got that space virus that kills in twenty-four hours—it kills and she got injected because no one was watching her back, because he was supposed to and he watched it too well and traced the naked skin over the dip of her ass as she swiveled her hips playfully, giggling.

Nothing like she is on tv.

Just parks beside her dead body because he failed and her hand is limp, her eyes are blank, and her chest stops moving with breaths, the blood is so heavy on his hands, like tar. He cries, and weeps, and begs, just pleads with whoever will listen to bring her back. To take someone else. To take him because he can’t do it—the rest of the dream—without her and he—

“Cameron?” her voice is thick in the back of her throat until she clears it. The room is dark except for the neon light tubes running around the baseboards. Her hair is the definition of bed head, and she rubs at her forehead where her eyebrows crease.

Her hand is on his bare shoulder, cold from the night, from sleeping away from him, because they try to remain platonic as best they can, back to back, but sometimes he needs to hold her, to feel how she’s still breathing, sometimes she needs something warm to rest her cheek against.

Sometimes he has to kiss her, to remind himself that there’s a reason to live, and it’s her—just for the spring of contentment it brings him for the few minutes she allows him, because she never kisses him, and when he puts his lips to hers, she always ends it without a word, by just walking away.

Checks the clock and it’s a little after three. He is still up by six, goes for a jog through the city, and when he gets back, he always attempts to cook them breakfast, but she’s usually up and refusing his offer of eggs, or waffles, or Pop-Tarts. She just leans against the breakfast nook, her two hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee with too much sugar in it, and she says nothing as he tries to do the crossword.

Will shower and go to work, and when he pops off the couch, all tight pants and ready, she denies him her company and goes to work alone. Some perverted part of him misses watching her get dolled up in that chair because at least he was spending time with her, at least they were having conversations where she wasn’t sobbing. Wants them to be together—not in a relationship way, their lives are too fucked at this point to even attempt anything with longevity—but during the day—she keeps him sane and he knows what goes on at her work—or used to before she started giving him the silent treatment.

Before he asks, she glances over her shoulder, eyes already sliding back to sleep. She likes to sleep now, tucks in earlier and earlier each night, but still she doesn’t kick him out when he stumbles into the room and yanks off his shirt, switching his jeans for sweats.

“You were having a nightmare again.”

“Sorry.” Watches her settle with her back to him again, and her side has to ache as much as his from laying in the same spot all night long.  

“You ought to talk to someone.”

“You volunteering, Princess?”

“Talk to anyone but me.”

Wants to ask what the fuck he did for the sass, for the cold everything, but he knows he abandoned her for a good month. Let her do literally all the work while he tried to settle himself with the constant looming background of New York City and buildings that won’t be there in years to come. In the constant company of a woman he wants nothing more than to keep happy and safe—than to fuck satisfied every night.

Scoots up behind her, lining the front of his body to the back of hers, dropping his hand around her bare thigh and she immediately stiffens, riding the edge of the bed. Her body twists trying to get away from him. Her hand strikes out behind her until she slaps his bare shoulder, once, then twice.

 On the third smack she adds, “No.”

“Sorry.” Nods, pulling away from her, the skin on his shoulder stinging and the relaxation in his muscles fading.

Hears her shuffle, and the bed bounces with her movement as she jostles away from the edge, and flipping on her back, with a loud sigh. Her arm raises, beckoning him. “Come on.”

Doesn’t want to grin, but he is, and he hops back to the space behind her, now in the shared neutral territory of the middle of the bed. Slides an arm under her head and holds her thigh again in his hand. She smells different than Vala in twenty-two years, but somehow there’s an underlying familiarity that puts him at ease despite the stirring in his pants every time she rubs her thighs together, something he knows she knows, but they don’t talk about that either.

After a few minutes of laying in an awkward, but comfortable silence, she removes his hand from her leg and tucks it over her hip, shimmying back into him, causing another stirring that she’s definitely fully aware of—but she’s there—her blood isn’t running through his fingers and her chest keeps up on its repetitions. Rests his nose in the dip where her neck meets her shoulders and inhales that vague familiarity, feels her skin bristle against his lips, and he knows she’s protected for at least the next three hours.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from Blue Monday by New Order


	7. Running Up That Hill

“You don’t have to come.” Reassured him as she waltzed into the living room, clipping the back of her earring on. Her dress—another mini—made from silver silk with two black bows showcasing her bare back. She looks so good that he forgot it’s 1988 for a second.

Pulled himself off the couch in a tux he rented while she was at work because she doesn’t let him go with her there anymore. The more he thinks about it, the worse it makes him feel. Doesn’t know whose stupid idea it was, or if they worked together to create this rift between them, but if he’s the only one working to fix it—he’s fine with that too.

“Come on now.” Threw her a lopsided grin and buttoned his jacket before offering her his arm. “You invited me remember?”

Wasn’t so much an invite as a plea for him to come, and if he could step through another time traveling wormhole, he’d go back and kick his own ass because he didn’t see it.

Didn’t see how she needed him.

They sat in the back of a cab, their knees not touching as she tucked herself into the corner, her legs beneath her and the sun slashed through the rows of buildings he’s still not used to seeing again.

At the awards show they’re separated because she’s gotta pull reporter duty for the MTV—ask the celebrities who walk the red-carpet stupid things about their clothes, their dates, their songs—all while either being looked down on by some, or shamelessly hit on by others.

Through the live feed inside the theater he watches her just giggle it away with the emptiest eyes he’s ever seen.

Flops down beside him as the show’s about to begin. The auditorium is dark with a few neon lights and if he squints his eyes enough he can pretend he’s back in their bed. She must think the same thing because halfway through the show,  she leans her head against his shoulder and falls into a silent sleep. He grins because it’s sweet—there’s something so basically Vala about it, to fall asleep while speakers are booming, and bands perform.

Finally, when the comic-turned-talk-show-host delivers the closing jokes and the houselights pop on, he drops a hand to her thigh, now covered by the jacket he removed so she could have a blanket and gives it a light shake.

“Vala.”

“What?” she groans, turning her face more towards his white shirt, smudging makeup across his shoulder.

He hates the makeup now.

Before, without it, she used to look so tired, but now after she washes it off she’s just Vala—like they met late night in the cafeteria because neither of them could sleep because she still was fighting off the no longer deadly—but still threatening—virus, and his something gut churned with guilt.

She didn’t stay though.

When he called to her in the caf, she drifted by without a word.

Lets his lips linger in her hair as people stir around them. In a low whisper, like he doesn’t want to disturb her, he adds, “shows over, we can go home now.”

She hums, almost starting to stretch with a half-grin, but then it completely wipes from her face, and her arms drop from the air—like she remembers where and when she actually is. “I have to go to a party.”

“What?” As far as he knows, their night was going to be her lounging around in the tub and then Chinese food because pizza is getting real old real quick.

“One of the executives demanded I go to this coveted afterparty.” Hands him back his jacket and he can already see the goosebumps over her skin.

“Why?”

She stands, her eyes looking tired even under all her makeup. She straightens the silk on her dress and slips her shoes back on. “Because the host is a very famous man who apparently asked for my presence.”

“Why would—”

The expression she gives him, not so much a glare as a questioning stare, clues him.

“No, nope.”

“It’s contractual.” Takes her clutch, a little sequin thing, when he hands it to her from where he stashed it in the side of his seat.

“There’s no way that’s—” She starts to leave, and he jumps up to catch her, his hand grabbing her bare arm, the skin a jolting cold. Her eyes are barely open when she looks at his hand on her, and then back to him before he wordlessly removes it. Lowering his voice, he continues, “that can’t be in the contract. You’re a VJ not a—"

And now she’s glaring at him. “Chose your words very wisely, Cameron.”

They stagger along in the crowd and he doesn’t speak because right now no words are good words. Instead he watches her shiver out a sigh.

“You really have to go to that party?”

She hugs herself as they approach hug bay doors leading back to the street. “If my employer sees it advantageous for me to do so, yes.”

Drops his suit jacket back over her shoulders because she always forgets her damn coat, and someone runs too close to them, shoving her against him. “Well then, I guess we’re going to a party. I always wanted to see if it was like the movies.”  

Opens her mouth to answer, but then quickly closes it again. Her front teeth digging into her bottom lip, which translates to details she’s not telling him. 

“Vala?”

She doesn’t answer him which is never good and as they break out into late night September, the cold fall winds stirring at their feet. He stops, just outside the door, letting other people file around him, and causing her to stop walking when she realizes he’s no longer following her.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously something.”

She steps closer, the crowd of people pushing her closer against him, her chest to his, and there’s a makeup smudge under her eye where she fell asleep against his shoulder—fingers twitch, wanting to wipe it away.

“We can discuss it later,” her tone a low growl, telling him to drop it.

Leans his head forward, less than an inch from hers and in an equally threatening voice, he grumbles, “we can discuss it at the party.”

They hail a cab and he doesn’t give their address. Waits for her to tell the driver where to go and neither of them say a word. The cabbie doesn’t complain, just turns on his meter and waits.

She leans forward to pass the driver a note with an address scribbled on it through the open partition. “It’s contractual.”

“What is?”

She sighs and under the open collar of his jacket he watches her chest heave, pale, beckoning against the dark fabrics. She’s wearing a bra this time because he walked in on her putting it on. Didn’t do it on purpose, she was fighting with it because it’s strapless and the sounds she was making made him think she hurt herself.

Side-eyes him, then glances to the rear-view mirror where the cabbie’s eyes quickly flit back to the traffic ahead.

“You not being able to come.”

“They wrote me into your contract?”

“Not specifically you—” turns her attention back out the window, but they’re stuck in the traffic jam coming from the theater. “Any partner.”

“What?”  

“I’m to appear as if I’m in a non-committed relationship at all times.”

“Single?” The word is bitter in his mouth. “You have to look like your single.”

She shrugs leaning into the arm rest and crossing her legs, the mini-dress riding high on her thighs. “It should make this party quite interesting.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush


	8. How Soon Is Now?

The party is one of the worst experiences of his life.

It’s exactly like the movies, exactly like the firsthand recounts and biographies that air late at night—probably on MTV. It’s dark and dangerous and loud. As soon as they walk in, someone offers her a drink, which she takes, and in the same step he snatches it from her hand and empties it in a nearby plastic plant.

Despite his best efforts to remain her chaperon—keeps telling himself that she’s not used to Earth, that she’s not familiar with the eighties or the party scene—she slips away from him by using the old washroom excuse. After a few minutes when she doesn’t return, he starts searching for her, playing calm while feeling his own heart race for no other reason. He’s declined every drink and drug offered to him so far.

Slips down a hallway where a few people linger, most blitzed out of their goddamn minds, and he doesn’t know if he should start banging on the doors or opening them—really doesn’t want to know what’s going on behind them.

Finds her at the end of the hallway, speaking to an older guy, probably pushing sixty. He’s pear-shaped with sideburns and aviator glasses and he just looms over her in size, shouting—not audible under the synth crap pouring from the in-house speakers—Vala shakes her head, her jaw set and her eyebrows angle as her back curls up—she’s not backing down.

A quick grin tugs at his lips.

She shrugs at him, says something final, and turns to walk away, but this big grizzly bear of a guy snatches at her—like she’s a roofied drink—and when she tries to wrench away, he slams her back into the pale pink wall with enough force to topple one of the paintings.

And he’s running full speed.

A linebacker.

A cannonball.

And he doesn’t stop until he connects with this guy, firing his fist at the side of his face, impacting the curve of his jaw which really stings the knuckles, but her release is immediate.

The adrenaline is more of a rush than anything they could’ve offered him at the party, and he thinks he says some sort of open threat like a perfectly cliched line from a John Hughes movie. Knows for sure he told the guy to apologize. Would’ve kept threatening—might have even given him another punch or two—if she didn’t tug on his arm, her skin all blushed to hell.

Of course, he relents, because he always relents, because they’re both stubborn as shit, but he’ll always be the first one to give in, and the next thing he knows, he’s getting flipped around, his torso hitting the hood of a police car as they cuff him. She watches from the side, the siren lights flashing across her fallen face and fidgeting fingers.

He gets printed and everything, they smash his fingers into ink and into paper, and he gets his very own mugshot that his mother would fan and faint if she knew about, but they never get a chance to ask him for ID—which he doesn’t have—before she shows up.

“I begged them to let you out.” She stands on the other side of the cell for once, making sure that her heeled feet don’t toe over the red line. Her face is almost grey with exhaustion, her eyeshadow melted and caked in the creases on her eyelid, mascara clumping, liner wet with sweat. Her bare knees are knocking together and she’s still wearing his suit jacket wrapped around her tight. “You’re lucky they happen to be fans.”

The cab ride home might be the worst of his life and he’s been frequently drunk in cabs before. She compresses herself into the corner, her skin growing paler, her eyes darker, her bare legs tucked up beneath her as she watches New York flash by outside.

“Do you even know who you hit?” She loves having conversations with the windows when they’re in cars.

“I don’t give a shit, Vala.” He’s getting better at answering to the back of car seats. Being arrested gave him a lot of practice.

“That was my boss—”

Well, no wonder she hates going to work. Suddenly it all makes sense, her refusing to bring him first on set, then to the actual building around the same time that she started becoming more withdrawn, startling more, shying away from his touch. He shifts, blinking away whatever his fatigued brain is conjuring up. The guilt tight in his stomach and his suddenly dry mouth stay though.  

“Seems like an asshole.”

“I probably don’t have a job anymore—”

“It doesn’t—”

“Yes it does, Cameron.” Her head snaps back from the window. “How are we going to procure funds? Where are we going to live?”

“I don’t care. We’ll figure it out.”

“How can you be so—”

“He put his hands on you. You get that?”

Her lips purse, the tightness slowly fading out the popstar pink, and she doesn’t say a goddamn word to him.

“I don’t care if it’s the eighties, or the fifties, or the twenties—it’s not acceptable. I only hit him once because I didn’t want to make a scene.” His jacket is sliding off her shoulder a bit, pure white and that same blue as Night Court, the same blue she absorbed when his fingers braided through her hair as she rippled around him with a surprised gasp. “If we lose the apartment, it will be worth it.”

They ride in silence for a bit. AM radio streaming in from the front of the car as two in the morning passes with the lone soundbite of a wolf howling. There’s the clacking of the driver’s trio of air fresheners hanging from the rear-view mirror, and the thump of tires over potholes. The streetlights strike over her knees like match heads, and she grabs his hand in both of hers, shifting closer, bare knee knocking into the side of his bad thigh as her fingers trace over the ink stains.

For a second, it all seems ethereal.

But he could pick her hands out of a crowd while blindfolded. Fingers soft but cold, each movement purposeful, practiced like an ingrained dance, like forgetting the words to _Jessie’s Girl,_ like having a minor attack whenever Night Court comes on.

“Do you really mean it?” Blinks up at him, her eyes big and wide, dark irises sparkling in the gleam of neon signs selling cigarettes and bad beer.

“Mean what?” Closes his hand around her lingering fingers, ensnaring them, feeling the jolt as the cold tips prick at his palm.

She doesn’t answer, just keeps watching, her eyes squinting—deciphering—before she reclaims her hand from him, moving to hold either side of his face, and she leans up to kiss him since forever.

Since always.

Her mouth warm, and welcoming, still tasting like bubble gum.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'How Soon Is Now?' by The Smiths


	9. Burning Down the House

It doesn’t happen overnight—they don’t make out in the cab on the way home to an apartment that they will very likely not have next week, he doesn’t heft her into his arms, and she doesn’t monkey her legs around him, and he doesn’t carry her with his lips buried and sucking on the side of her neck.

They’re adults, and tired, and depressed being stuck in a decade when everything they knew hasn’t happened yet, and everyone they know won’t trust them.

They walk into the apartment in silence. It’s still the spitting image of a catalogue page, and when she starts undoing her hair he follows the trail of pins into the bathroom.

She turns on the shower, and he shadows her, turning it off.

She doesn’t say a word, just arches an eyebrow at him in challenge.

“It’s been a long night, Vala, just come to bed.”

“My makeup is starting to cake and my hair—”

“You look as good as you always do.”

He grabs her hand, guiding her back to the bedroom, surprised by just how easily she follows him. Starts tugging at his stupidly thin tie, undoing the knot as she sits on the side of the bed, her knees still knocking. 

“Cameron—”

When she reaches down to tug off her shoes, he takes a knee, sliding the straps over her heels and chucking the shoe to the other side of the room. “I promise if you just go to sleep now, tomorrow we can do all the pampering you want.”

“Hmm.” She hums, her toes flexing against his shoulder while he roles down her nylons, hands sliding over her legs just a little at first. Dipping his toe into the water. Dragging his fingers around her heel and under her arch. “Are you volunteering?”

“Like you even have to ask,” chuckles, but when the muscle in her calf tenses under his hand he glances back up, finding her surprisingly sober for being up almost twenty-four hours. Watching him, not as a predator, but studying him, trying to figure out what he wants because once they both wanted the same thing, then they got it, then he didn’t want it anymore because he’s a fucking coward. Doesn’t nod or answer her, just places a kiss on the side of her thigh that’s made it by his cheek as he rolls the second nylon down.

Her hands reach down, grabbing the popped collar of his dress shirt and at first he thinks that she’s going to shove him away, but she yanks him up, crushing her mouth over his, a hand scratching at the back of his head, the other worming into his shirt and suddenly he’s stirring, he’s awake.

Her hand skims underneath the band of his pants and he’s very awake.

But when he breaks the kiss for air—when she breaks the kiss to moan because he’s got his hand cupping her beneath her dress—he can see how exhausted she is, how erratic, and he doesn’t want a repeat of last time. Doesn’t want her to be ashamed of what she did while drunk on fatigue. So he slows down the kisses, stops pressing his palm against her, loosens his grasp on her thigh rubbing where his fingers were digging in.

“Cameron?” Questions only when he pulls fully away, her hand evicted from his pants—which are just as tight as any jeans—and he sits back on his heels, adjusting himself to be comfortable.

“We’re both tired, Baby.” The pet name slips loose and his heart stops because it seems so natural.

She reaches a hand to his cheek with a soft grin, not the explosion he was expecting, not the pounce or the kick or slap—and her hands skim to the back of his ear caressing, then to his head, petting until he leans into her because she always knows exactly where and how to touch to calm him down, to get something across, to fire him up. “You want to be all in?”

Catches her hand, placing a kiss on the palm, and standing to officially end their two-minute make out session that made it hard for him to walk. “Only way to bet with a good hand.”

“From what I just felt, you have a good hand.”

He almost whips back to her, because it’s something so Vala to say, something she would’ve said in 2010, something just natural and Jackson would roll his eyes. He’s aware of how much it relieves him, the idea that she’s becoming comfortable again.

It suddenly doesn’t scare him that much.

“Headache?” Asks over his shoulder from the bathroom, grabbing the aspirin from inside the mirror, and filling a glass with water before knocking back two pills.

“Yes.”

When he gets back into the room she’s pulling her hair from inside the collar of her huge nightshirt, and he hands her his glass and two pills. She tucks her feet underneath her, drinking from the cup with two hands, and he ducks his head to hide his smile as he toes off his shoes and socks and abandons his slacks.

She shuffles over to accommodate him as he works at the shirt buttons she missed, flinching her eyes at the neon lights they cannot turn off.

“They bugging you?”

“They’re just bright.”

He shrugs out of his shirt, before collecting one of his shoes from the floor. “They remind you of something don’t they?”

He’s thinking theater lights, the runners on the side of the stairs so people who can’t hold it for two hours, can find their way to the bathroom.

“One of Qetesh’s vessels.” Not looking at him now, but out the  window to the city, it’s still too early for sunrise, but if they last another hour they might see it. She tucks her knees into her hooped arms and blinks back to him. “She had—” must remember these aren’t his favorite stories to hear. “—there was just a room she used a lot that had lights like—”

He whips his shoe across the room, smashing into one of the neon tubes that breaks, crackling a little bit. Her eyes grow wide on the bed behind the shoulder she brought up in defense.

“What—”

“They’re out now.” Yawns, ignoring the bit of broken glass on the carpet, instead tugging back the covers. She still stares at the row of lights now blacked out, the Christmas bulb effect—one goes out, they all do—until he smacks a hand to the bed beside him. “Tomorrow. Come on.”

She nods, crawling to the head of the bed, her body no longer stained the blue he saw her in before, but just her skin, pale and backlit by the city that never sleeps. Her feet are cold and buried between his knees and when he wakes in the middle of the night to find her shivering on the other side of the bed, he drags her back to the middle, wrapping an arm around her chest in time to feel her content sigh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title borrowed from 'Burning Down the House' by The Talking Heads


	10. Sugar Hiccup

They slept in late for once, neither really wanting to get up and face the music that they so naturally made together the night before. Found out she’s a light sleeper, everything he did—from a small adjustment of his feet, to breathing through a stuffed-up nose—jolts her back to consciousness. In the room—in the dark—it’s safe, and his thoughts buoyant on alcohol—wildly nodded in agreement with each of his whims—there they could be together without him worrying about the repercussions.

His set internal clock woke him a little before six with the sunrise glowing up his window. He rubbed at his eyes, staring a bit bleary at smudged red writing in his clock, then snuffled the sleep from his nose and blinked deeply, first meditating, then threatening to fall back asleep.

“Cameron?” Her arm reached back for him, slapped around the bed blindly as he slipped from between the sheets because if he stayed, he’d kiss her again, and this time he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol.

She slaps back for him, hitting him square in the chest and giving him push out of sleep, he brings her fingers to his lips and kisses the pads before guiding her hand to his hair—the headache from shows and parties and neon-colored everything pounding behind his eye—hoping she might—

Her fingers comb over his now longer hair that he really hates, but he can’t exactly have the army cut without being in the army—it raises questions. He moans leaning into her touch—her expertise, her ability to relax him—snagging her by the hips and tugging her back to him.

Laughter bubbles up, her hand caressing his chin, and when he leans down to kiss her, she responds and he might still be asleep, he might be a few months ago twenty years from now when he held her like this last. His thumb skims down her neck, and he’s more awake then her, always is despite how quickly she can be awoken.

But her skin heats underneath his touch, the parachute nightshirt flung over her head as her lips become fervent against his and she bucks against his knee. When her hands sink into his boxers, fingers curling around him, stroking him, he drags his mouth across her chest, salty against his tongue, palm kneading over her breast. Skin he’s only been intimate with once, but has known for years, could recite words written into them.

He hears the same music when he trails his mouth downwards, covering her without warning, the taste almost comforting, the slickness against his tongue, wearing her legs over his shoulders. The feel of her work up, the taut tension within her and around him. The delicate flutter fanning around his fingers, the capture of her breathe, body in an arc, fingers still massaging the side of his head.

Grinning against her at the stillness of her release, the exhale of her entire body as he works her through, works her down until her back relaxes against the bed again.

Nuzzles on her inner thighs, waiting for her to catch her breath, sucks against her hip and feels the flinch in her muscles, kissing upwards, counting ribs, resting his chin between her breasts watching the pink diffuse through her cheeks and the bob of her chest as she laughs.

Groans as her knee and shin rub up against him and rids himself of boxers. “Condom?”

“Drawer.” Extends an arm with a lazy grin, and he plants a few kisses on her bicep, her hand tracing over his back in light strokes, before he opens the drawer, fishing around inside until he grabs one.

As he rips it, she pushes herself to sit up, the flush still creeping over her skin, still blooming in her cheeks. She touches his arm gently, fingers wallowing in the bend. “Cameron—”

She sounds more serious than before, the flightiness behind her eyes weighted with something, and his one-track mind assumes she’s not on board with the condom which burdens his own thoughts with the nightmare of everything he doesn’t want.

Well, not—it’s just—and raising—and when they go back—

Would everything just rewind like a VHS tape?

Can someone just blink out of existence that easily?

Before he can blurt out the entire terrifying saga he lived in the blink of an eye, she taps him once with her index finger, calming and grounding, allowing him a single sigh.

“You’ll stay?”

“Stay where?” Hand rubs up her leg, knee to thigh, blindly comforting.

“Last time—” She turns away, staring at the slit in the curtain.

“Hey.” Jostles her leg, trying to win back her attention. “Last time what?”

“You left—If I did something—”

Leans in, resting his head to hers, his nose to her cheek, his arm curling around her midriff and the smell of her wrestles him up, makes him eager, makes him twitch. “I promise, you didn’t do anything.”

Expects her to laugh or argue or go off on him, but she angles her head, resting her forehead to his, her eyes downtrodden. “You won’t leave this time?”

“Baby, I’m not going anywhere.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Sugar Hiccup' by the Cocteau Twins


	11. Lorelei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all those still reading. You're the reason I keep updating!

The sun beaming through the open window is warm across his legs as the slated blinds dance from a gust. There’s car horns and people arguing and more horns. He groans hiding his eyes in the crook of an arm and reaches across to hold her because he’s feeling cold, and maybe she’ll pet his headache away again—but his hand only smacks down onto a wrinkled silk sheet. Opens his eyes, sitting up and finds the rest of the sheets crumbled over her side of the bed.

When he checks the time, the number just a bit blurring with the lingering tension of his headache, it’s a bit after two. Perching on the edge of the bed, he sighs deeply, trying to remember if she had to work today or not, and then sets off finding a clean pair of underwear.

As he yanks out the drawer he’s allotted in her dresser, he hears the sound of splashing, the smooth movement of water, and he grins, knowing where she is. Yanks on the boxers anyway, and steps through the open bathroom door.

She’s reclined against the side of the tub, the big square kind with jets that he hasn’t seen her use since being here. Figured it would be more her thing, but she usually just jumps into the shower and out again. Her eyes are closed and she’s trying to angle her head in a way where the lip of the tub and the cut of the tiles aren’t poking into her neck.

“Morning Princess,” greets as he opens the latticed cabinet retrieving a fluffy pink towel and rolling it into a cylinder.

Doesn’t jump or still her fingers swirling around in mounds of bubbles, just grins. “Good morning, Darling. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a log.” He leans over the steps—made in white tiles, white slippery, slimy tiles, set up like a death trap—tucking the towel under her head, and kissing her smile.

She kisses back.

She tastes like peppermint and there’s a very strong floral scent in the room, from the bubble bath and he thinks whatever she used in her hair smells like roses. There’s still a little bit of darkness hanging around her eyes, but she looks relaxed, skin bubbled pink and kissed other colors, every few seconds her foot drifts up in the buoyancy of a water jet.

The bubbles are a frothy mess spilling over the tub and onto the death tiles. He pushes aside some bottles and a magazine she was reading, and sits on the edge, his feet digging into the stairs. “You should’ve woken me.”

“But you looked so happy to be asleep and sexually satisfied for once.” She shimmies her shoulders and her feet bounce through the bubbles again.

“I woke up alone,” says it with a grin on his lips so she knows he’s just playing.

“I left the door open for you, I’m sorry but the feel of the grit piling onto my face—” when he doesn’t answer, she ducks her head under the water and pops back up. “Look—” raises a hand to his lap, water running off it and down the stairs, hot droplets sliding over his skin, his fingers tracing over her palm before she lines the pads of her fingertips up with his and presses inwards to tent their hands together. “I’m not even pruned yet.”

Doesn’t answer again because he’s distracted by the contrast of her skin, pale against his bare thigh—skin so smooth and white that the tiles he sits on seem dirty—and the question plaguing him since he found her bobs to the surface.

Is he using her?

Is she using him?

Or are they both using each other to cope with a traumatic situation?

Is this a relationship—it’s not, because it can’t be.

Yeah, they’re inseparable, but they were thrown into the ass end of the eighties and blended up. He wouldn’t be doing this with her, be this calm while she’s that naked, her breasts pillowing against the lip of the tub as she strums wet fingers over the hair on his leg. He wouldn’t notice the way her hair fans out in the water, how the top of her head is drying frizzy, how she was reading a Cosmo he picked up for her the last time he did the groceries because all she does is work and sleep and cry and he wanted to stop that.

He did stop that.

Probably got her fired.

“Cameron?”

If they were back in 2010, he wouldn’t have any type of relationship with her except professional—only he did. He did because he was tired of seeing her left alone on base. Tired of seeing the way the other guys she hooked up with treated her—she thinks he didn’t know about them, but he’s the boss and it’s his job to know. It’s her, and he’s always had a watchful eye on her since Jackson took her out on a date that ended up with her being a waitress for two weeks while they thought she was dead.

He was tired of watching her vibrant personality fade, the smile falter from her face, the laughter die in her throat as she nodded to whatever Jackson or Landry or some IOA asshole told her to do and ducked her head down as she walked away.

Was really tired of watching her gyrate those goddamn hips on the dance floor and everyone refusing to join her. Thinks it’s because she’s a natural, erotic and hypnotic, the tune running through her veins with naquadah.

They won’t be in a relationship if—when they get back, and things will slowly revert back to normal with him jogging in the morning before debriefing and using dating sites to help fill the sex void while she gets yanked around and ditched.

But while they’re here, it might be their only solace.

Sure, there’s Crystal Pepsi and pizza flavored chips and anti-drug PSAs out his ass. There’s also the looming notion of knowing things, things that darken like her eyes do when she gets too drunk—it drags him down and he needs to leave.

He can’t let there be a reason to stay.

“What did you say?” Realizes she’s been speaking while he’s been daydreaming, sighing over her stroking his skin the way she does, stirring in his boxers.

She giggles, her hand dry now and cold from exposure. “I said you could join me—” she reaches forward and snaps the band of his underwear “—and I could help you take care of that problem.”

He can’t let this be just about sex.

Sure, it’s stress relief for him—he basically gets to live out the fantasy he’s thought of on and off for the last year and a half and then every day since they fucked after the bar—he’s sure it’s good for her too—he’s felt it, tasted it, heard her moan it from her lips into his ear, throttled like a good bassline—but maybe if she’s doing this for him, the way she is now, leaning half out the tub, her lips plying his, water coursing down her body, over the steps, soaking the front of his boxers as she works him through the material—then he can treat her the way he’d like to see her treated.

Moans into her mouth, pulling on her bottom lip before breaking the kiss. “Let’s go out.”

Her hand stills on him, slipped beneath the leg of his boxers, bathwater erasing a bit of friction. “What?”

“We should go out. Take a walk in the park, go to a club or something.”

“Alright?” Her voice drags, her eyebrows knit with confusion, and her hand slithers out from his boxers. “Do you want to go right now or—”

“No no. No.” Stands, tugging off the boxers and tossing them to the far side of the room, a grin spreads across her face as she leans back, relaxing, watching him. He clambers over the lip of the tub, feet sliding against the death tiles until the water swirls around his feet, then his knees and hips as he sits, his back getting pulsed by a stream.

She doesn’t even wait until his ass has hit the bottom of the tub before, gliding into his lap, rubbing against him and pulling him, tumbling into a deeper kiss.

“Now this.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Lorelei' by the Cocteau Twins


	12. Tenderness

They spend the day together doing nothing except actually enjoying the city for once. Got shoved into this timeline in the late spring and now it’s the beginning of September, the leaves are changing on the streets, and without the whole global warming debate spiking up yet, it’s already getting a bit chilly. They don’t cuddle or snuggle or walk hand in hand, what he does do is grab her by the elbow and point things out to her, things a human born on Earth should know, things that only he knows about from the future, from before she came through the gate.

For dinner they eat sushi and he gets the absolute pleasure of watching her struggle with chopsticks before sighing and starting to ram the food into her mouth with her hand. He tries to show her— more than once, he shows her—the right way to hold them, but her fingers can’t move with the dexterity his do. She starts to get frustrated, pouting her lips and growing red, until he snatches a piece of sushi up from their shared platter and holds it for her to eat, which she gets a kick out of.

Eventually, they take a taxi to a club—one she mentions she’s been invited to almost once a week but has never wanted to go before. It’s dark with pink and blue lights blaring down over a white tiled dance floor thick with people and fog. It’s busy, but they manage to find a single seat at the bar, which he lets her have so she can get off her high heels. As people brush by, mainly guys, some he recognizes, some he doesn’t—a few of her coworkers and few more famous folk—bump into her more and more often, he tucks into her side, maybe a bit overprotective because she hasn’t done the whole nightclub thing before.  

Someone offers her a drink again, and he takes the tumbler from her hand, pouring the contents on the ground.

“Stop accepting drinks from guys.”

“Darling,” her hand slides up the arm of his jean jacket, and suddenly it’s a lot warmer. “He’s just trying to be friendly.”

“No, he just wants—“ She watches him with a blank face, blinking once, and he sighs because having to explain all these things, to protect her constantly, is a little patronizing, something she hasn’t really hooked onto yet. So he does his best to excuse his 2010 attitude, trying not to talk down to her—trying not to get her to follow his orders without hesitation. “Look, just—” he wipes a hand over his face, clearing it of sweat “—don’t accept any drinks.”

“Cameron.” Her head leans against the side of his chest as she rubs her cheek against his black shirt, again staining it with makeup. “You need to live a little.”

Wants to tell her he just wants to make sure she keeps living, instead he plays in her ponytail, her hair simple unpoofed, unteased, uncurled. Just long and straight. When she sighs against him—at his non-answer—she gains tension, like how he handles her, not so much physically, because he’s got that down—more so emotionally—is stressing her out.

He nudges her a bit with his body. “Let’s dance.”

He’s not a dancer, he never will be.

It’s embarrassing the lack of coordination he can have with his own body, yet he can fire an automatic rifle with precision, or navigate the cockpit of a jet with ease. No, he’s not a dancer, but what he is, is taken aback by her ability to flow. The grace, the balance, as she swivels around him, making him look like a pro as he grins nervously at other dancers and tries to bounce to the beat. He gets distracted watching her legs, her bare knees, the hem of her skirt flowing out from just above. She twirls and glides as natural, as spontaneous as she is when they fuck, thinking out movements and actions he has no knowledge of or talent to possess.

When she tires, flushed, and panting a bit, with that secretive little half-grin and her skin glowing from perspiration, he kisses her, his hand cupping the back of her head and the other at her hip just to make sure he can feel the movements.

She laughs against his lips, deepening the kiss.

“Man, it’s hot.” He pulls away because the temperature is too high, and he’s in those goddamn jeans again. He knows his limits and plays them to the edge.

But she nuzzles contentedly, wrapping her arms around his neck and sighs—it’s different, not as deep, not as worried, more like she’s longing for something.

“You okay?” Asks as he starts to sway her to the slow beat of _Time After Time_ , something to cool the club down.

“Yeah.” Her voice is small, maybe tired, maybe wistful.

They stay silent and maybe she’s unsure of herself, maybe she’s thinking of being back in 2010, climbing all over Jackson’s desk, getting boot prints on his ancient texts because she’s too lazy to walk all the way around the table. Missing the stale cafeteria doughnuts and the weak coffee. Missing—the bit of autonomy she had, going on out missions and logging artifacts or translating Goa’uld. Missing the interactions she shared with Jackson, the flirting the touching, admiring a man that he will never be.

“Hey.” She beckons him. Leans back in his arms, the pad of her finger tracing his lower lip. Her smile is different, warmer, but dull—not genuine, not the real thing, not the beam she gives when he surprises her by bringing back weird French pastries from his morning jog, or when he bought them another round of shots and challenged her—himself already slurring words—to a drinking contest, or when he holds her on his lap, flipping the channel from MTV quickly as her promo comes on and tells her that they’re idiots for never knowing the real her.

He tucks a strand of hair, loose from her ponytail, behind her ear.

“Wanna get out of here?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Tenderness' by General Public 
> 
> Mentioned in text is 'Time After Time' by Cyndi Lauper


	13. Over the Edge

At work Monday, she learns that they have two days to vacate the apartment. She rushes into her office, panicking but trying to hide it as she starts putting stuff—makeup, a pair of shoes, some magazines—into a cardboard box. She sort of flits around the room—he lets her, to get it out of her system, so maybe she won’t crash at home—but stops dead in the center, and he tells himself not to look at her because it’s going to set her off, but he does and her eyes run over glassy before she starts crying.

“Vala—” closes his notebook where everything he’s learned remotely close to gate travel is stored. “It’s not going to be that bad.”

Nods against his chest, but her hands are still balled, and her cheek is wet when it grazes his bare arm.

“We can always go back to the hotel room in Colorado Springs. I’ll work at the factory while you do the research. Maybe you’ll be better at it then me.”

Once they get back to the apartment she’s worse. Mournful as she gazes out the window with a tumbler full of whiskey that he didn’t know they had or else he would’ve started day drinking a long time ago. Doesn’t mind when she drinks, she gets flirty and touchy and horny as all hell—she’s more passive and pliable, not directing him, just sitting back and enjoying the ride.

He hates it when she’s drunk, past the buzz, and the flushed cheeks, and less than nimble steps with her black nyloned feet tracing the outline of his dick through his pants. Beyond the backseat cab or dyed blue in his bedroom. Drunk Vala is uninhibited in a different way, not sexually or playfully, but vindictively, vengefully.

When Vala drinks to get drunk she seethes, her teeth grit, her fingers claw into the glass or bottle, and she talks to herself, mumbles out of the corner of her mouth, her arms crossed and her body rigid, and if he tries to talk her down it set hers off, screaming at him in Goa’uld, dropping her glass to the table and bashing one of her fists into his arm until it becomes too tiring and she starts to cry, starts to tell him about Qetesh, and all the things done to her in broken English.

Tells him she’ll never be worthy of love, or redemption—about how she was forced to continue living by the Tok’ra which is its own curse.

He will hold her until she falls asleep from exhaustion, no longer fighting the alcohol, and he’ll carry her to the bed, readying a garbage can, a bottle of water, and some aspirin for her when she wakes.

She’s in the middle of the mumbling phase and he watches her from the hallway to the bedroom. His hand washing across his face as he readies himself for dealing with her, for talking her down, for putting up with the assault, which is nothing compared to the tears, compared to the words that she speaks in English that make him vomit.

The phone rings though, startling him, barely causing her to jostle what’s left of the whiskey in her glass. She tucks an arm up under her breasts and sighs staring out at the city, not a word leaving her mouth, no note, no sound, nothing.

So, he does what needs to be done.

This is not how an ideal partnership should work, this is not how a healthy relationship flourishes, but for three whole months he leaned on her, let her support his weight as he leafed through encyclopedias and typed using his index fingers at the library downtown. He let her go to a toxic place, that reminded her so much of a part of her life she wanted to forget, and then he thought she would be happy when he ordered pizza for supper. He let her mourn for a life that isn’t gone yet, that they can get back to, while she held his hand like she was drowning watching a judge fumble through the law on an NBC sitcom.

Now it’s his turn to be strong, to collect her when she collapses, to stick close to her when she’s speaking that Goa’uld that he doesn’t understand but he knows the English words, and if they’re anything the same, then he needs to stick close.

He has to answer the calls that she’s unwilling too, so he snatches up the Garfield phone when a new string of rings starts up and in his most no-nonsense, had it with the bullshit voice, he booms, “What?!”

“S—Sorry,” a meek voice on the other end of the line chirps out. “I was wonder—” the caller clears their throat “—I was wondering if I might speak to Miss Mala?”

Wants to tell them that it’s Ms but doesn’t think it’s worth the conversation at this point. “She’s unable to come to the phone right now.”

“Well, I have some news that—”

His eyes never stray from her, the soft glow of a white dress shirt falling to her hips and a pair of plaid slacks underneath. The grease from the leftover makeup of last night, from this morning, from five tumblers ago—and she always said she could hold her liquor, he never did doubt her—fingers hooking around the lip of the glass, her bottom lip trembling over with emotions, not quite on the brink of the angry crying.

Thinks he has about fifteen minutes.

“—and I would love to tell it to her myself.”

Exhales, listening to the sound of his own static over the phone. “I said, she’s not taking calls. You can try again later.”

There’s a pause and he thinks the caller has hung up, but as he’s about to slam Garfield back into the cradle, the voice pipes up again. “Is this Cameron?”

Then he pauses, his heart thudding and he replays the voice in his head trying to sort out any familiarity it might have. It’s male, and soft, and definitely not anyone he went through the gate with the last time. “Who is this?”

“Her Cameron?”

Something about the cadence, the tone, fuck, probably just the words is offsetting. That he might belong to her, that she to him, that they belong in this goddamn decade at all together, or alone at their current sets, that the pin in his hip doesn’t act up every time it rains and that her nightmares are so quiet he hardly knew she was having them so often.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No, you’re both going to want to—”

“Don’t call here again.”

“I’m one of the executives at MTV that oversaw her grooming,” blurted out last second before he could slam Garfield back together. Doesn’t like the word choice again, and this guy needs to have someone with some empathy write his speeches. “We have an offer.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Over the Edge' by Wipers


	14. Love is a Battlefield

The offer comes in the form of her job back, her apartment back, and what she negotiates in as a little more agency and respect.

Turns out when they were at the club, a lot of other more famous people were there, which meant that cameras were there, something neither of them even noticed, and the cameras—again while trailing someone more famous—managed to catch their dance. Before they left, as he slid off his jean jacket and held it for her to wear home—because, again, she never remembers her fucking jacket—someone asked them who he was, and while she was still floating on the high of dancing and the four vodka cranberries she knocked back, she leaned her head back into his collarbone, her nose tipping his chin up and her hand stroking the side of his face.

Her words full of pride.

“This is Cameron.”

The tape wasn’t authorized by MTV, so when the higher ups got a bombardment of calls asking about her, asking who he was, asking for previous tapes of her session with her dedications—masquerading as a call for help—her popularity spiked almost overnight and he was forgiven for punching that guy in the face.

When they went to go sign the new contract, she demanded he be present, and he made it very clear that if that guy worked on the same floor as her, he would kick his ass. They were more than willing to reassign him in order to keep her and were Stepford Wives smiling the entire time—she didn’t get the reference, but she did get to keep her bridge troll assistant and he knocked on the kid’s desk on their way out, his hand curved around her hip.

A month in and it’s going well. She’s invited to more public events, which means she has to get all dressed up like usual, but the invite is mandatory for him as well. He doesn’t say much, just sticks to her side at random movie premieres or charity events. Guys still try to talk her up, and he remains stoic until they say something over the line—usually he just guides her away mid-conversation, but sometime he actually has to lay out a warning, which he does with deep-set brows and the angriest glare he can muster in an oversized suit.

Soon magazines and entertainment news channels and late night shows want to interview them and they have to play through the whole charade of how they met which is just a retelling of how they actually met—she sashayed in on his first day as the new boss, spoke bluntly to him, hooked her arm through his—left out the part about the white knight—honestly he doesn’t know what’s weirder, that nineteen-year-old him is going to see this, or that he actually fought a white knight.

With days spent at work and weekends spent at awards shows, charity functions, and recordings of them retelling how they met to fifteenth different outlets, their work on finding the gate is falling through their fingers, and while their not-really-a-relationship act is fun, and they get to lay on a picnic blanket in Central Park while she weaves delicate flower crowns from dandelions, only to reach up and place on his head, and when he cocks a questioning eyebrow at her, she breaking into the most beautiful laughter, musical almost, a lot of things about her are so calming to his ears.

While the sex is still mind-blowingly fantastic to the point where sometimes after he comes with her biting down on his shoulder, or his forehead tucked into he crook of her neck, he blanks for ten whole seconds on what decade it is.

While all of that, and low-level celebrity status that neither of them really wants, but that she’s quickly learning to flaunt, is perfect, fights erupt sporadically on whose fault it is they aren’t home yet. She pulls the whiskey out of the cupboard until he finds where she’s hidden it under the sink and tosses it down the garbage chute because he’s tired of hearing about her fucked up past, tired of hearing about the abuse she’s suffered, tired of hearing about worse possible things in Goa’uld because he still can’t figure out if he’s using her or she’s using him or if they’ve agreed to pin it until they return to the future.

He gets upset when she buys things—stuff for the apartment, dresses for her, clothing for him, a wallet for him—gets upset when she schedules him an appointment at the DMV to get his driver’s license back—something that happens on the first try because an eighties sedan in New York is nothing compared to a motorcycle on a dusty Colorado Springs highway. Part of him wishes they could return to that—to the city, to the hotel room and his factory job and his illegal alien neighbors that have nothing on the woman he’s fucking—that’s another thing: he doesn’t know how to refer to her. Vala? His teammate? His friend? His girlfriend? His fuck buddy? None of those seem appropriate because they’re much closer than all that.

On Saturday she gets real mad at him because he forgot that they had a club opening to go to and when she came home by cab—why did he have to get his license again?—and he’s having a nap in his boxers on the still round, still uncomfortable couch, she throws up her arms, dropping bags of groceries—something he’s been slacking on getting—and stomps to the room. Doesn’t say a single word to him, just washing all the hairspray from her teased-to-hell hair, wipes off all her makeup, and crawls into bed at seven.

He waits, unsure if he should get dressed, if he should make supper, if he should continue to sleep on the couch through the night. When he crawls into bed close to midnight, she doesn’t kick him out, but when he wraps an arm around her stomach, planting a kiss on her shoulder poking out from the elongated collar of her t-shirt, and starts to mumble an apology, she pushes his face away from her.

“Do not wake me up to apologize.”

So he doesn’t.

Just cuddles in behind her enjoying the tempo of her breathing, the compression of her chest under his hand, her natural scent buried beneath three or four discontinued products, her hair cold and still a little damp, drying in clumps. Closes his eyes, content on sharing a pillow with her.

Still plagued by the dreams, the ones where she falls and he keeps running and he wonders what it means, aside from the obvious fear of being abandoned in the eighties by himself. Tries to translate why his mind would air and re-air different scenarios where his hands are literally covered in her blood, why it feels like he’s more afraid of losing her than he is of not returning to 2010. Knows that’s why he tags with her to these events, the ones she flourishes at, perfect fitting dresses and a huge grin—still not the real one, but close enough to pass—and pose for flashing camera, toss her his arm around her, or set her legs in his lap if they’re sitting.

Goes because every time he does, at least one person gives her a drink she didn’t ask for, and he’s killed a nursery’s worth of plants with alcohol and GHB.

Her shrugging him off wakes him, and he assumes he was having another nightmare. Her shoulder came pretty damn close to his eye socket though, so he rubs it a little for show, a little to wipe a bit of the sleep away, while he slips away from her. “Sorry.”

She doesn’t answer, her back still to him and her shoulders vibrating. At first he thinks she’s crying  into her arm; she’s done it before and sniffled away all the evidence before he could ask her what was wrong, then he realizes it’s one of her brand of nightmares. They both have them, would have to be crazy not to after all the shit that’s happened. She’s so quiet about hers, like if she could, she would bottle them away to only suffer through alone, but he’s learned a lot about her in the last few months, a lot about her body and the way it reacts to his, a lot about her past and the dark emotions she has floating around in her head that he has to keep in check.

His nightmares are violent from the get go, he writhes and twists and shoots out his arms and legs kicking and screaming as he freefalls from the sky, as the phantom pains seer up into his leg and curl around the base of his spine, as he learns to be mobile and independent again. All he did was crash a plane, and all she has to do is wake him up with the soft licks of her fingers through is hair, curl against his side and stroke a hand across his chest. Whisper things into his ear in that raspy half-asleep voice and he knows where he is, and he relaxes.

He only knows a handful of things that have happened to her as Qetesh and as herself. Only a few tidbits and stories she relays through the stream of consciousness dead ass drunk she becomes if she hits the liquor too hard. Only knows a few names of guilty parties, but he knows the names by heart, and if he’s ever in the room with one of them, those bastards are gonna be the ones having nightmares.

But watching her shake, her whimper, curling her arms against her head to protect from something that doesn’t exist, that isn’t happening, yet will happen about every other night from how often he’s experienced it with her, something grounds him, tells him what’s important. Always has an internal hierarchy and it always starts with the mission. Make sure the mission is a success, make sure the SGC is properly represented, make sure not to fuck up by using some custom that’s offensive, like the time he reached to shake a village elder’s hand and everyone, including Vala, Jackson, and Teal’c gasped.

A big part of the mission is the team and a big piece of his responsibilities is making sure they all get back safe and relatively unharmed. From the moment he saw her, he knew she was going to be the trouble and when she bounced onto his team, shot at some Jaffa warriors and ran back to them out of breath, she was trouble. She’s the hardest one to keep safe, but probably the one who needs it the least. Hell, her dying record is only like a tenth of what Jackson’s is.

Then he thinks about this mission. The one they’re on now. The one they don’t have.

Her bare shoulder shudders it the cool air, and the silk sheet slides down her back to puddle between them. She whimpers, flinching and turning her head into her hands again and the muscles in her back bunch with her tension.

He shifts back closer to her, grabbing the sheet and tugging it back up around her shoulder, then placing a hand flat on her back. Her body grows rigid, but she starts to relax upon waking, her smashed eyelids fluttering open as he drops a kiss by her ear.

“What?—” Her question dies in her throat, her eyes barely open, as she glances over her shoulder at him.

“You were having a bad dream.” Sort of mumbles as he drops another kiss.

“Hey.” She swats at him, but weakly, with bad aim, she only whacks his shoulder once. “I’m still angry at you.”

“I know.” Collects her hair from around her neck, splaying it across the pillow and nuzzles his nose against her skin, his lips plucking at her skin. “But I woke you.”

“So I should thank you?” Her tone sounds annoyed, but the way she shimmies back against him, angles her head so he has a bigger expanse of her neck, tells him it’s all for show.

“You don’t have to.” Snakes a hand under the sheet, finding the jut of her hip underneath the jumbo t-shirt.

“Oh?” She rolls on her back, and his hand slides over her stomach. She curls her fingers around his ear, tickling it as his thumb strums across her navel. “So why should I let you continue with the pancake-y?”

“Hankey Pankey,” he almost snorts against the side of her neck, and she jumps from the tickle of his breathe, he’s half hard already, and he can start to feel her body react, different parts of her going taut, the stuttered gasps, the flush blooming across her cheeks and down her neck to her collarbone, a soft pink that gives him bragging rights every time he sees it. Pulls back his lips, and her hair piles against his arm, her eyes are alert but softened, watching him as she gives him that grin. He traces a finger over her cheek. “And you should let me because you’re so goddamn beautiful, it would be cruel to deny.”

She blushes further, her head tucking in against his shoulder, but when he jostles her she glances back up at him.  The pads of her fingers itch over the scruff on his chin, caress around his ears and brush through his hair. “Well, when you’re so eloquent—”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar


	15. Der Kommissar

Wakes and untangles himself from her, his arm from under her head, his hand from where his fingertips brush against her stomach with each breath she takes because it’s and easy way to let him know she’s still alive.

“Cameron,” her voice is a low groan, her shoulder shrugs up as his weight moves from the bed. “What—”

“Nothing Princess.” Leans over from pulling on his boxers and plants a kiss on her shoulder again, finding a few of the dark marks he left last night. Kisses her neck and then her ear as he whispers, “I’m just going for a jog.”

“Mmmm,” her voice is tucked away under the covers and he doesn’t have to ask her if she wants him to bring her anything back because it’s always a pastry from the coffee shop eight blocks away.

She’s dead asleep by the time he’s pulled on sweats, runners, and one of the t-shirts he scrounges from the laundry basket. There hasn’t been any down time in the last two weeks. No time for cooking or laundry—they already have someone to clean the apartment, but maybe they can talk their way into a laundry service or something.

It’s almost the end of the October and the weather is a little colder than he’s come to expect. Advertisements for Halloween plaster all the store windows and bus booths as he sprints by before heading into the park. Doesn’t know if she’s ever gotten to experience a Halloween since being with the SGC—knows for sure she’s ever been outside the base during one. He’s going to talk to her about going costume shopping because there’s probably some stupid party they have to attend, and she’s going to need a rundown on the holiday.

Jogging in the park is okay. It’s not the around the mountain racetrack, or through the streets of Colorado Springs, or on the _Odyssey_ —it’s nice but too different. He makes sure never to go all the way into the park—even in the day—because his memory is bad but he remembers how dangerous this place is—especially in the eighties—and it makes him feel like an idiot whenever he passes a woman with a baby stroller or a blind guy walking a dog, but they don’t know what he knows.

She doesn’t either and she’s gotten into this habit of going for little walks by herself sometimes at work, sometimes after, sometimes at night—without him and he paces around the apartment until she comes back, knuckles jammed in his mouth as he tries to remember dates of riots, or bomb scares and park attacks, trying to keep her from the fray.

When she does come back, smelling like cold wind and autumn leaves, with two coffees in her hands, he berates her, telling her she shouldn’t go off alone while snatching the coffee from her. He guesses she knows him well enough because she just rolls her eyes and nudges off her sneakers before telling him for the third time that week that she can take care of herself, planting a kiss on his cheek and snagging her coffee from the counter behind him.

Sometimes it works him up more, makes him vaguely tell her things that have happened in that park, around that park, around this city, and she fully listens to him with no cares given as she shrugs away the violence, and the nonchalance hits his stomach like a brick because now he knows of exactly six things that she did—had been done to her—as Qetesh.

And it is six too many.

Sometimes the kiss on the cheek just melts him because she’s safe and here and she brought him coffee which makes him grin because she knows his order now, so he grabs her pulls her towards the round couch, or the counter, or whatever’s closest.

Stuff like that scares him too.

Maybe more just in a different way.

How in sync they’ve gotten in the last few months, how they can communicate to each other at parties or galas without ever opening their mouths. How he can look at her and knows she needs to be rescued from a conversation or person, how she seeks him out after they split to mingle because he’s told her he worries when he can’t find her. How they just non-verbally agreed to not split—he walks her to the restrooms and waits outside with her sparkly clutch, because once in the future she went to the bathroom and got knocked out and it took them two weeks to find them.

How sometimes she arches an eyebrow at him, and he escorts her into the bathroom.

How none of this is really that scary anymore.

Sure 1988 sucks and they’re still going to find a way back to 2010—

But being here—at least with her—is normal.

They’re becoming normal together and he doesn’t mind.

He realizes he’s in a wooded area, slowing his pace, about to make the bend and start heading towards that pastry place she loves so much. When brought the first one—something with custard or whipped cream and a name he has no idea how to say, he just grunts and points at it in the shop—she immediately dropped the attitude because he’d been gone too long, and bounced on her feet eventually giving him a kiss on the cheek with pastry crumbed lips.

Something’s off.

He feels it before it happens—unusual, out of place, just something falls in the pit of his stomach and he tugs his earphones out just before the first punch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Der Kommissar' by After the Fire


	16. Atmosphere

He’s sitting on the side of a bed in the loudest emergency room he’s ever been in. Phones ringing, people crying, babies and kids screaming, the guy next to him is dead ass asleep and he’s never been more jealous in his life.

Told them not to take him to the hospital.

Begged them while he was in the back of the ambulance to just turn it around and drop him off at home. They just kept asking for ID and he just kept saying that his wallet, like his Walkman, was stolen.

The curtain shrieks as it’s wrenched back and he expects to find another doctor—this will be the third one in just as many hours—to tell him that they need to do an x-ray and he’ll have to tell them it’s fine because he’s got a big ol’ metal rod jammed into his leg, that he really hasn’t come up with a backstory for yet.

But it’s her and he doesn’t know if that makes him feel better or worse.

Her lips twitch to the side and she calmly strides towards him. He tries to return the same smirk, but all the muscles in his head are on fire—stiff and overworked and bludgeoned—from where the two guys fought back.

Doesn’t know why they called her and doesn’t remember asking them to, but she softly pets his head against her chest, her fingers petting through his hair light enough that it doesn’t provoke more pain.

“I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t.” A simple word cut off by her gasping, trying not to sob when he can hear all her conflictions through her chest. Leans his chin, remarkably untouched in the beat down, against her ribs, staring up at her and the tears clouding her eyes as she grins down at him. Shaky hand stroking his ear. “Don’t.”

“I’m all right, Vala.” Drags his heavy weighted arms to hoop around her hips, nuzzles against her despite the pain and swelling in his face. “Just banged up a bit.”

“You had—” she pauses, still petting through his hair, over the ridge of his forehead, but staring straight ahead. “When they called, I thought—”

“Come here.” Tugs on her hand as she starts to sob, to shake against him, and she tucks into his arms—fits perfectly—with her wet cheeks rubbing against his neck while he pulls his fingers through her hair trying to calm her.

Was upset with himself for being in that stupid situation anyways. How many times had he warned her? At least a dozen in the last week, but he thought he was invincible because he’s been here before, knows the ruthlessness of the eighties that hides beneath pop princesses and brightly colored windbreakers.

Was furious at the situation. At the two guys he knew brought more danger than any eighties park thug. How he threw punches before he knew what was happening, and when he recognized their uniforms, he threw them harder. How he ripped his wallet out of his back pocket, chucking it in the woods as a distraction—as an alibi—while he jogged away on what little adrenaline he had left.

She calms in his arms, her legs resting between his as she sits in his lap, hand still caressing the side of his face, right over the bruises, the swelling, but it doesn’t hurt, it still settles and when she sighs, her breath cools the skin on his neck where her wet cheek stamped.

He gets upset for another reason then. Gets so fucking furious that he can hear his heartbeat in his ears because this could’ve been her. This could’ve been one of the cute little strolls she takes when she gets bored or overwhelmed and then she comes back with a flyer or coffees or a weird shaped rock presented to him as a reward when it’s really her he’s so excited to see.

“We’re going to have to change the locks,” mumbles it against her shoulder, peaking out from where her seven-sizes-too-big sweater hangs from her body. The marks from last night are still where he lets his lips rest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from 'Atmosphere' by Joy Division


End file.
